Frequently asked questions

The Tek Atelier is the independent practice of Mario Pucciarelli. It fills a senior role a company can't yet justify hiring for — Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Information Security Officer, or Country and Regional Manager — as an interim executive full-time, or a fractional one a few days a month, across the Gulf, Europe and Latin America. One senior operator does the work; there is no junior bench and no handoff.

Interim is full-time equivalent for one client, six to twelve months, with a defined end date — the shape you want when a role is vacant and there's a date on it. Fractional is two to six days a month, ongoing, with a six-month minimum — the shape you want when the market is real but the headcount isn't approved. Both start with the same fixed first month. One interim engagement, or up to three fractional ones, and never both at once.

Because most companies don't have a hiring problem abroad — they have a sequencing problem. You can't justify the headcount until you see revenue, and you can't see revenue without someone senior. Filling the role first breaks that loop, and it's reversible in a way a permanent hire isn't. A regional director costs you a search, a relocation package, and twelve months before you know whether the market was ever there.

A consultant is paid for the recommendation. An executive is paid for what happens next. In these engagements I carry the number the role carries, attend your management meeting alongside your other leaders, and report from a CRM you can log into. If a board or investor needs to hear from the function directly, I'm the one who turns up.

I sit in the role. Real meetings, real accounts, real stakeholders — not a discovery exercise run at arm's length. At the end of it you get a dated, written verdict with the evidence attached: what the role actually requires, what the market said, and whether filling it permanently is justified yet.

Yes, and the fee is identical either way. Before you decide, I'm paid the same whether I say go or stop. After you decide, I'm paid like someone who has to make it work. The incentive follows the question. A documented "not yet" frees the headcount budget, the relocation package and a year of attention for the market that deserves them.

A fixed fee for month one, quoted plainly in the first conversation, before anything is signed. After that, a monthly fee — retainer for fractional, full-time rate for interim — with a six-month minimum, plus an outcome component tied to the measure we agreed in month one. No day rates and no meter running. I don't publish numbers because the right figure depends on the role, the region and the shape; you'll have it in the first conversation, not the third.

Because after you've decided to go, the honest incentive is for me to be paid like someone who has to make it work. During the decision itself there's no outcome component anywhere — that's the point of the fixed first month. The two phases are deliberately paid differently, and both are written down before you sign.

One interim engagement, or up to three fractional ones. Never both. An interim engagement consumes the whole practice, which is why there's only ever one. When capacity is full, you get realistic timing in writing rather than a queue you never hear from again.

Companies with a working local team that need capacity rather than leadership — hire people, not me. Companies that want introductions and access rather than someone accountable for a result. Buyers comparing day rates across an interim-management panel; the panel will quote lower and you'll get someone competent. And anyone who wants an assumption applauded rather than tested.

You hear it from me first, dated, in writing, with what I'd do about it. Either of us can end a fractional engagement after the six-month minimum with a month's notice. An engagement that quietly stops being useful and keeps invoicing is the exact pattern this practice exists to be the alternative to.

Yes — for interim engagements it's part of the scope, not an afterthought at the end of it. The point of filling a role temporarily is that the permanent hire inherits a working function rather than a year of unrecorded context.

The Gulf — UAE, Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC — is the lead market, where twelve years of living and operating in-region is the depth. Europe, particularly Italy, Spain and Portugal, rests on eighteen years of enterprise and telco work across EMEA including six running South and Eastern Europe as a territory. Latin America means Brazil first. The asymmetry is deliberate and stated on the regions page rather than hidden.

English, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. Italian is native; the others are working languages used in actual negotiations, not phrasebook entries. Arabic is not among them — in the Gulf, English is the language of enterprise business, and pretending otherwise would be a claim I couldn't support.

The person who can stop a deal is frequently not on the account plan — a regulator, a shareholder's shareholder, a ministry nobody consulted. Data-residency regimes change what your architecture is allowed to be, not just what it should be. And a well-connected local name can promise access and deliver nothing behind it: connections are not commitment. Mapping every stakeholder who can say no, not just the sponsor who says yes, is most of the job.

Security posture treated as a commercial asset rather than a compliance chore: the vendor questionnaires and architecture decisions that determine whether your contract gets signed. Mapped across EU AI Act, SDAIA, UAE PDPL, DIFC Regulation 10, LGPD, NIS2 and GDPR — because no single framework covers a company selling across the Gulf and Europe.

Three regimes run simultaneously. The EU AI Act: banned practices since February 2025, general-purpose AI obligations since August 2025, and high-risk obligations deferred to December 2027 and August 2028 under the Digital Omnibus. Saudi Arabia's SDAIA AI Ethics Principles and Generative AI Guidelines apply to companies operating in the Kingdom. The UAE's DIFC Regulation 10 on AI has been in force since January 2026. Cross-regime strategy is the work; picking one framework and hoping is not.

Security is a role here, not a service line — the same fixed first month, the same interim-or-fractional shapes. If what you need is a certification delivered rather than a function led, an auditor is cheaper and is the right tool, and I'll say so.

From a CRM that is the single source of truth, and you get a login. Pipeline, stakeholder maps, next steps and dates live where you can see them without asking me. Written reports are dated and generated from that data rather than assembled from memory the night before a review.

MEDDPICC, Strategic Selling, Challenger, Value Selling and Consultative — adapted to what the room actually needs rather than applied as a ritual. The purpose is always the same: map every stakeholder who can say no before they get the chance to.

Agentic AI runs the back office continuously: CRM hygiene, drafting, translation, validation, and gap and scenario checks. It saves real time. It does not replace the read on a room or the trust that turns a mapped stakeholder into an ally — and the time it saves goes back into exactly that.

Occasionally, and only where it doesn't compete with an existing engagement. Ask, and you'll get a straight answer about capacity in the first conversation.